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What happened to the Anti War Movement. Updated !!

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Well there's always the memories– November 15, 1969 CAPTION Here's an article sourcing the same study from [NPRhttp://www.npr.org/2011/04/15/135391188/whatever-happened-to-the-anti-war-movement] which offers an interesting suggestion for a new dynamic collaboration. (Emphasis mine)

“As president, Obama has maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan,” Heaney, an assistant professor of organizational studies and political science, said in a news release. “The anti-war movement should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity.” Instead, Heaney continued, “attendance at anti-war rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated. The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the anti-war movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions.” So is Barack Obama the new George W. Bush? Could a “new, non-Democratic” anti-war coalition rise up to protest against the wars being waged today? Boaz asks. “And the $64,000 question — though these days it would have to be at least a $64 billion question — could a new anti-war movement hook up with the Tea Party movement in a 'Stop the War, Stop the Spending' revolt?” After all, the Tea Party has shown that it knows how to stage demonstrations.

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  1. …of the three conflicts in which we are currently engaged, the one to which I most object (Iraq) is also the one winding down the most.  The President is doing what he said he would in Afghanistan, and while I supported going in I’ve come around to the opinion that winding it down would be a good idea.  I’m also just as happy to be supporting the resistance in Libya.

    • On the other side of the aisle, there’s the rather amusing spectacle of Republican leaders criticizing Obama for being too involved in Libya and not involved enough in Libya. Were these deeply held beliefs not motivated by anti-Obamaism then they’d be attacking each other too.

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      p>They’re not.

      And what’s wrong with being anti-Bush?

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      p>His Axis of Evil speech gave obvious incentives to N. Korea and Iran to become nuclear powers or risk destruction. The boneheaded division of the world into good and evil is unlikely to yield good policy. Case in point: the destruction of Fallujah. To oppose Bush was to oppose ill-considered violence.

      Contrast Obama. Bush had a very clear, though very bad, policy orientation. Obama’s policies are just plain incoherent. There’s no detectable objective for remaining in Afghanistan. Guantanamo should be closed, we’re told. When? The Libyan rebels have got air support. Now what?

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      p>He’s on all sides of everything. It’s hard to get excited either way.

      • may be the people losing faith that electing anyone besides Ron Paul will mean more wars, and have hence lost their will to demonstrate.  I chalk a lot of that up to the incoherence of Obama’s strategery.

    • You never saw anyone, but the hard left and radicals (and the right) oppose Clinton’s interventions even though they were just as illegal, ineffective, and immoral. The Zinns and Moores made a protest, along with the Gingrich Congress and paleocons, but the average liberal/progressive either supported these humanitarian interventions or stayed home. I remember being called a Republican by my 6th grade classmates for opposing the war in Kosovo my those were the days.  

      • …as opposed to partisan.

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        p>There are sincere and principled pacifists and isolationists, but they are a small percentage of the ‘anti-war’ movement as utilized by Democrats.  That’s where the ‘movement’ went – into mothballs as long as a Democrat is President.

        • …I think there IS something to be said for factoring in how much you trust the incumbent commander-in-chief to do the right thing for the right reasons.

    • It’s similar to the civil liberties issue. Congressional Democrats who spent the last decade talking about how Bush/Cheney were shredding the Constitution, causing the deaths of innocents–with a few exceptions, they didn’t really care, and they owe Bush/Cheney a massive apology.

    • The movement does still exist, in reasonably respectable numbers. Not enough of us, but we’re out there.

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      p>http://caivn.org/article/2011/…

      <

      p>More than ten thousand people filled New York City protesting war a few short weeks ago, but Obama loyalists have abandoned them.

  4. Diplomacy is the art of communication, compromise, connection – and being believed.

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    p>Being believed requires follow through, keeping promises, fortitude, and integrity – solid virtues that seem not to be very much in fashion.

    <

    p>For the diplomats of a country to be effective, the country has to keep its promises.

    <

    p>Analogy – as a parent, if you state that if a child breaks a rule, that act will have a consequence, never, ever threaten a consequence you cannot actually perform (or will gravely regret and consequently won’t deliver on) if you expect to be taken seriously.  

  5. In the seventies, modern administrations (both Democrat and Republican) learned from the sixties that the best way to neutralize demonstrations is to encourage and then ignore them. The Obama administration is a case study in how to accomplish this, replete with its careful tutorial offered to the government of Egypt.

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    p>When police politely escort well-behaved demonstrators to hygienic well-isolated “first amendment zones”, nothing happens. Demonstrators walk around, yell a bit, sing some songs and chant some chants, and then go on with their lives. The forces they oppose do the same.

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    p>It is no accident that the same administrations who learned how to neutralize demonstrations and demonstrators also broke the back of organized labor.

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    p>A new generation of demonstrators needs to learn that the only effective tool in American culture is economics. Demonstrators need to work with, not against, organized labor. If several tens of millions of Americans citizens not only took to the streets but also took to the picket lines, so that anti-war sentiment had an immediate and measurable financial impact, then change would be forthcoming.

    <

    p>Demonstrators who are serious about ending the three wars we are now involved with need to get serious about making an impact. If Boston is chosen, then shut down the financial district. Turn out in force, use non-violent means to provoke a police response, and force the police to shut down the streets and the buildings. Make it impossible for anybody to get anywhere. Make the government fill the sidewalks of Quincy Market with flak-jacketed SWAT teams and soldiers in uniform, carrying automatic weapons. Shut the city down. Fill the media with images of bloodied demonstrators having the crappola beat out of them by uniformed thugs. Don’t give in, don’t move, and don’t fight back. That’s how you make an impact.

    <

    p>Singing Dylan songs on the Boston Common is a fine way to spend a spring day, but it’s not going to make even a TINY difference in US policy.

      • …with the tactics you suggest that seem to provoke violence from the side of law enforcement and grinding other aspects of life to a halt.  I’ll stick with rallies on the Common and of course ultimately voting, rather than shutting down the financial district or anything else.  To me peaceable assembly also constitutes leaving those who are not involved at peace to go about their business.

        • The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the environmental movement–basically everyone who got anything serious done, you disagree with their tactics. People can demonstrate on the Common and get a nice write-up on Page B3, but somehow it doesn’t seem to work that well.

        • All the important “movements” from our own Revolution, women’s suffrage, civil rights, workers rights/organized labor, welfare rights to name only 5, involved at the very least civil disobedience, almost always non violent on the part of the demonstrators.

          <

          p>I got arrested once part as part of a careful plan of civil disobedience actions to illustrate and illuminate the injustice of paying janitors a non living wage with no health benefits. I spent an evening in a jail cell with 20 other activist women.  (It was actually great fun.)  

          <

          p>The consequences of my civil disobedience is not even close to what Martin Luther King and his army suffered in southern jails, or the suffragettes who chained themselves to the State House fence to get arrested and sent to jail for days, weeks only to be force fed to dehumanize their hunger strike.    

        • you’re all for exercising one’s right to peacefully assemble and civil disobedience so long as no one is inconvenienced?  

          <

          p>Wow, somebody should have clued in Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony, James Bevel, etc.  I don’t think they got the memo that they were supposed to be “leaving those who are not involved at peace to go about their business.”  

        • Getting arrested – not my cup of tea.

          <

          p>Last I checked the suffragettes and civil rights activists for the most part did not engage in what I’m picturing Somerville Tom describing.  They DID have violence directed against them at times, but not provoked like this.  They had marches and rallies and such, but even sit-ins and Rosa Parks not giving up her seat would not be the slightest inconvenience to others if said others had left well enough alone.

          • Last time I checked, civil rights activists jammed the streets, they blocked traffic, they went where they knew they would be the targets of imprisonment and violence. I think you need to check again.

            • …The big ones that come to mind, the March on Washington that culminated with “I Have a Dream” and the March to Selma were done with permits, I thought.  Knowing you might get arrested unjustly for doing something legal and provoking it are two different things.

  6. and we need to have wars periodically to justfy the existence of all the weaponry. It also provides useful live testing of new weapons.

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    p>It’s harder for the Dems to oppose wars as they are perceived as softies.

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    p>It’s funny because I now perceive the President as spineless for not doing what he said he would because he would be perceived as such.

    <

    p>Too bad that tens of thousands die, hundreds of billions are spent, a myriad of collateral issues (increase in heroin production, de-stabilzation of Pakistan, etc)occur just so elected officials can get re-elected.

    <

    p>I am very exicted that GE Lynn is manufacturing new jet engines for the F-18 and might get a contract for the backup Joint Strike Fighter engine (eff the Pentagon- what do they know?).

    <

    p>We need to counter the advance air power capabilities of the Taliban, Al-Queda, Libya, etc. They could be flying over the US without these weapons!

  7. It doesn’t take much more than common sense to realize that it would be harder for anti-war democrats to protest against a Democrat in office rather than a Republican.  Much of the protests I saw were largely intertwined with protests against Bush himself.  He was the face of the wars.  Now that Obama is the face, there’s a conundrum.

    <

    p>This is all combined with the fact that it can be hard to keep up the anti-war protesting “machine” after 8-10 years.

  8. Here is the link

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    p>Close bases here.  Build them overseas.

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    p>Cut programs here.

    <

    p>Spend the money over seas.

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    p>Cut jobs here.  Add jobs over seas.

    <

    p>Who is really driving this bus, anyway?

    • You might die, either from enemy action or from accidents that wouldn’t have occurred had we not been in war.

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      p>You might get part of your body blown off.

      <

      p>If married, you will probably get divorced as your spouse can’t deal with the whole thing (or deal with you, once you’ve got back).

      <

      p>Your kids will probably have issues as they have lived such a dysfunctional life.

      <

      p>Your head will probably be messed up.

      <

      p>In exchange we will peridocially thank you for your service. You won’t see much of this if you are deployed, at some East BF base, in the hospital, or dead.

      <

      p>I can deal (conceptually) with all stupidity, diplomatic fall out, cost to the economy, etc.

      <

      p>But I can’t get past the cost to the people involved.

  10. this is the latest wingnut meme.

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    p>Antiwar protesters, militantly ignored during Bush 1 & 2 as they are today, are retroactively acknowledged to be widespread and outspoken–but only until 2009.

    <

    p>After that point, their existence no longer supports the talking point of insincere opportunistic pacifism, and they cease to officially exist.

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